May 3, 2010

Baseball-Intellect looks at Jake Peavy

… Now, I’ve gone and looked at the tape of Peavy and I notice only subtle differences between Peavy’s lower body action. However, I don’t think I have the right angle of video to make a detailed analysis about Peavy’s lower body. I’d need to see something from a side angle, something I don’t have.

But there are other differences from the center field camera that I noticed and they relate to his arm action.

Each pitch, Peavy pounds the ball into his glove as a timing mechanism for when to get going. He punches the glove and then breaks his hands. Below, from left to right, we have Peavy in early April of 2010 (fastball at 87 mph), late April of 2010 (fastball at 93 mph), and in 2009 (fastball at 95 mph).